“Senator Poe gets it”

Senator Poe’s keynote speech at Business World conference. [Photo from GlobeICON]

By JoeAm

I was surprised to read of Senator Poe’s remarks at a Business World conference this morning. She actually made sense and drilled right to the point (rather than talking out of both sides of her mouth seeking to appeal to everyone).

So as a regular critic of her mamby pamby populist safe zone politics, I have to be candid and voice appreciation for her remarks. I look forward to what she has to say about the failed drug war and gifts of resources to China as she (I expect) revs up her political voice, thinking about 2022.

The senator said it takes 18 permits for a telco to get a tower authorized. It takes forever to get permitted, if at all. She said it should be done in seven days. Bingo.

She also said the Philippines runs its agencies on analog systems in a digital age. Bingo.

The Philippines runs a rats nest economy. Inefficiency and incompetence thrive, each involved party stuffing another juicy fee into the process. It is legalized corruption.

Analog and paper processes hide corruption. Digital would reveal it.

I’m sure she said a lot more than those two points during her speech, but the comments certainly got my attention. If she pounds out beauties like that, forcefully, her stock as a presidential candidate in 2022 will most certainly rise.

But I’m not here to promote her. Rather, I’d like to think a bit about the social model we are witness to, and how the model works the opposite of the ideals of democratic capitalism.

The Philippine social model is tribal, even today. Call it dynastic, or feudal, or whatever you want. But it is thousands of common-interest groups from families to government agencies to businesses, each managing a power base and finances to self advantage. Not to the advantage of the nation or Filipinos.

Favors lead to soft corruption, soft corruption leads to hard corruption, and favors, soft corruption, and hard corruption lead to inefficiency and incompetence.

The ideals of democratic capitalism should drive inefficiency and incompetence away. The two important fundamentals of justice and open markets are power forces in democratic capitalism. Justice allows damages to get resolved and removed from processes (inefficiency and incompetence generate a lot of damages). Open markets weed out inefficient and incompetent groups through open competition. They fail if they aren’t building something people want.

The combination of justice and open markets leads bosses and managers to think “how can I do the best job possible”, not just “how can I make some money”.

In the Philippines, we see all those thousands of common-interest groups going for near-term gain. No one is thinking, “my success depends on doing a good job”.

Well, Jollibee understands. But not many others do. And certainly not government agencies. They are case studies of really horrid business practices, of people not caring a bit about their product. Bosses don’t hire for skill. They hire for favors. The hard worker is paid the same as the slouch. Promotion opportunities, which light fires under ambitious people, are reserved for favorites.

We have a whole government of millions of little Faeldon’s, hired because they are friends, roaming around mucking up everything they touch.

I hope Senator Poe and other candidates in 2022 think about the fundamental ways the Philippines does not work well, and set out to address the failings.

Justice (eliminating damages)

Open markets (building efficiency and competence)

That, in its simplest form, is a political platform that can rebuild a nation.

The agribusiness sector of the Philippines is so 1700’s. The farm-to-market roads are a huge waste of money, agree. Migrating to real agribusiness from small farms is important. It goes hand in hand with a national land use act.

Things are so bad and demoralising in Philippines that a business forum speech by Senator Poe gives Joe hope.

In our discussions in previous blogs Joe has not in definite terms displayed his religiosity, unlike many here who declared their scientific bent. This distinction matters because it colours the meaning of hope. To a non-secular, hope is mostly pining for a positive outcome. To a secular mind, hope is what Aristotle said — a waking man’s dream. That has never been properly explained, but what do we call a dream when one is awake — daydreaming.

I’m thinking Poe’s speeches depend on to whom her audience is. I’ll applaud if she comments on the impossibility of a timely issuance of a telco permit in Malacanang.

But I share your hope candidates in 2022 can “think about the fundamental ways the Philippines does not work well, and set out to address the failings”…..

AND of course voters will have the wisdom to choose the right leaders. 2019 did’nt go down very well and this is playing out in the Senate (new senators are showing the size of pea brains in senate hearings) and Congress (realising the return of pork barrels).

Except for Pia Cayetano, who is getting dumber by the day, it seems to me. But, yes, most women have conceptual grasp that a lot of men don’t. And perhaps motherhood leads to better humanistic values, too. Men learn to cheat, brag, and cheer Pacquiao. Except here at the Society. Here we get REAL men.

… most women have conceptual grasp that a lot of men don’t. And perhaps motherhood leads to better humanistic values, too. Men learn to cheat, brag, and cheer Pacquiao. Except here at the Society. Here we get REAL men. [Bolding, mine.]

I feel no advantage to declaring a religious bias as that might discourage someone from commenting. Or put another way, I respect all views and also see a certain futility to arguing matters of faith. I’m open to drifting into spiritual realms, fictional realms, analysis, or calculating probabilities about the future to the best of my ability. Again, I see no reason to limit my or anyone else’s explorations.

I cite Poe as a lead-in to the important points of the article, the way justice and free market capitalism, properly managed, can build a better way than the self-dealing, inept, work we see now.

I’ve been harshly critical of Poe for a couple of years. Yet I feel no need to hold to that as a win-lose proposition that can grant her no consideration. I was impressed with her drill-down into a couple of key Filipino shortcomings. I said so. It is exactly the kind of bigger issue that ought to be addressed. Versus, say, Angara’s proposing a law to levy a 2 peso fee on plastic straws. Good lord, talk about trivial and small mindedness.

It’s a wise man who can adjust his views when presented with new facts. The proviso is he must be able to explain his change of views given the new facts.

As to your views on Poe, may I add in the ongoing Senate hearing on provincial bus ban, she chided Transport Secretary Tugade for citing again Congressional refusal to grant emergency laws as the reason for delays in project implementation.

However Poe supports the passage of the emergency powers bill back in 2017/2918. When it was fashionable to champion Duterte’s wishes.

So it seems dubious to me. For me, the facts have not changed as far as Poe is concerned.

Most would agree with you. With 15,000 followers on FB & Twitter, some of them substantial people, I have a mild ability to ‘influence’ thinking. If someone of any political persuasion says something important, I try to focus on the IDEA or issue and let the politics take care of itself. Or in Poe’s case, I do cite the criticism on her populist stance, then commend her for raising two important points. Shades of gray.

DOST ASTI, probably now under DICT, was working on a government data hub and a system for storing documents electronically in the time of PNoy, I wonder what happened to their projects – junked to buy from China.

BTW I read the new Bulacan airport will have 5G and facial recognition c/o Huawei, patterned after Shenzhen. Not the right way I think.

Why was Locsin able to do away with the birth certificate requirement for every new passport? Because NCSO has been computerized since the 1990s, one positive example of the Philippines not always caught in old thinking.

Facial recognition. I like the idea of tight security at airports myself. On street corners of Manila? I’d get a little claustrophobic, probably, and start to explore different ways to disguise myself to look maybe like Sal Panelo.

fuller augmented breast changes gait, something to do with gravity, lol! heard of an ex-politician gaining around 5cm in height. the procedure done in russia, leg bones broken and reset with 3months hospital stay, the cost enormous.

facial recognition is not foolproof. people faces changes as they get older, jaws becomes pronounced, jowls as well. noses get longer, eyes drooped, then there’s dowager’s hump. and with loss of bone density the tall gets shorter.

Our college had an annual “Ugly Man on Campus” contest that evolved to become an amazing exercise in temporary cosmetic disfigurement. I learned a lot about trimming here, stuffing there, roping this, stiffening that. We gave our guy a beak, bushy eyebrows, and tied his thighs to his chest so all he had to walk with was his ankles and feet. We hoisted him up on the table and he waddled across, a fat ugly troll. We won hands down, as they say.

Mossod reconfigures their agents, sends them to their home town, and if they are not recognized by family and friends, they pass.

I expect we will see some imaginative new salons popping up here and there.

This is something I always tell non-military or college types, you can’t have it both ways,

be anti-facial recognition while at the same time posting your mugs all over the place via facebook, Instagram, google, etc. etc. how do you think facial recognition learns.

With that said facial recognition is a done deal, the technology is there, and more reasons to use it than not. Ironically, facial recognition like speaking is essentially what makes us human, the ability to read and recognize cues from faces.

Here’s a tip, quarter your face, of half it from the bottom/top. Wear an eye-patch. Wear thick glass frames. Wear a cap. Bottom part, stick something in between your cheek and gums, wear one of ’em nose covers so popular in Korea and Japan, and during fires over here.

break up your face.

Aside from your face, the next most recognizable thing about you is your gait. maybe this comes from our days in the African savannah, when we had to assess other animals’ movements as well as our own.

but it’s futile, unless you can crawl back into a cave. your face will be recognized.

wouldn’t be surprised if the next generation(s) after the Gen Z’s and the millennials have an intense backlash to all of this. just a matter of intensity at this point.

thought about it for a while and realised—what if something like full-body veils for both men and women become the next counter-cultural thing in the future? people not revealing their faces until they’re close to each other.

or rather—privacy/personal data as a luxury: rich people can subscribe to something like premium FB to “regularly delete” their sensitive information, while poor people *sell* their personal data, etc. to survive.

I’m not really a tech guy or internet savvy (i just read) , I have a flip phone still. those tips above came from Ludlum’s Bourne series.

I do hope there is a backlash to all this.

As for your ninja mask idea, the Saudi peninsula is the best example, it cuts both ways, 1). hides the women and 2) hides the women 😉 which means plenty of adultery happen there precisely because of this– gay/lesbian love too, i bet you Turing wouldn’t had committed suicide had he had this luxury of hiding in plain sight.

As for face-to-face human interaction, makes sense to me, I mean we use to not wear clothes thus knew exactly when the other was horny and how desirable one was, the lippier or meatier, redder. since clothes came along we had to show this by other ways, by red lipstick and a big bank account.

I agree w/ Joe, I’d love to see this subject expanded into a blog, Francis. very interesting just thinking of all the possibilities here.

Heard one guy talking to another somewhere in Beijing. He had just crossed a road when he received a message on his mobile that he had been issued an e-summon for jaywalking. Shortly after he received a message from from his bank that his account has been debited $$$ for the jaywalking ticket.

All thanks to street surveillance and face recognition technology.

What happens if this man on the left, pie seller Shao Jianhua, picks up a jaywalking ticket. Who gets fined?

I dont really want to bring this up, but the devil made me do it, lol!

the 2nd biggest economy in the world, china, has touch screen technology nuon pa; matagal na. and those with special pass like top govt officials and those in intel, all they have to do is tap at the pic on the screen and the person’s hx is on screen kaagad and on full display pa: all info starting from birth, medical records, misdemeanor, etc. walang privacy. xi is exception though.

Once I had some problems with immigration and the office used a fixer to attend to the matter. After lots of explanation and an amazing maize of channels to go through, I decided to go direct. At the interview with the immigration legal officer and matter sorted out, he said that’s the problem with you guys. “Come to me direct, don’t you know the fixer’s job is to fix you.”

I think facial recognition is based on still shots of faces. Gait requires video. That would be a terribly more complex technology than facial recognition. That would require dynamic complexities. I don’t think the tech is here yet, never heard it mentioned before.

sasalpak lang po ako rito. those on the front line would say doppelgangers, identical twins, triplets, kalookalikes, deviants, etc, have code and are coded. the internet and the inter-connected-ness of things makes it much easier now. and techies no longer raise their eyebrows at doppelgangers.

those that look down and tried to avoid being face-recognized are in for big surprise. they cannot enter building as automatic doors refused to open, the inter-connected-ness of things make it so. they’ll be stranded and left standing and forcing their way in by going with a crowd will only alert guards.

whatdoyallthink of yorme isko being a presidentiable. i believe he has the political will and he is a service oriented politico. if the good laws can only be enforced, maybe there will be lesser problems pinas is facing. pdu30 started the war on drugs, isko started the war on bangketa at daan against illegal vendors and structures. and pdu30 backed him up by tasking all lgus to return the bangketa and the road to the people during his sona. yorme isko understand the plight of the madlang masa and he loves the masa but he likes patas ang labanan, walang mahirap walang mayaman when it comes to the enforcement of the law. how does manila look like now…i dontknow…havent been back for quite a while…i just watch the blogs and i like what i see. perhaps i wont recognize manila the way i last know it…the face of manila or even mm has changed greatly…how do we change the face of a city!?

i know the tech business is mired in speculation type bs especially when it comes to their funding, ie. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theranos so i guess weigh that variable as well, but it looks like this quantum computing is headed somewhere.

But those smart guys in IBM has built a quantum computer. Wonder where this will lead to. I suppose R&D in almost any field, especially in medicine, is going to benefit exponentially. I suppose also stock markets can be rigged more easily.

Offtopic: The other day, that Wallace guy in INQ talking about why technocrats and professionals leave and we’re losing them to other countries. It’s the pitiful salary, nepotism, favoritism, instability and corruption that makes them leave!

de lima herself could do with gcta, she’s detainee and not convicted. and she has been behaving well, always asking permission to go on furlough and not bribing her way out.

anyhow, it was not de lima but panelo who used the official letterhead to refer sanchez and de lima’s signature is not on any of bucor’s ‘gifted’ list. both faeldon and guevarra dont even look like de lima. and it was not de lima who said it’s okay for kapolisan to accept gifts.

so yeah, de lima is not privy to today’s bucor’s gcta mess, three yrs out of the loop na po siya and no longer doj chief.

joint exploration aside, itong 3rd telco ni dennis uy and sponsored by the chinese is going to have hub sa luob mismo ng military camp natin. pogos kasi build close to our military camps have been outed as possible spy hub. kaya, the chinese came closer and now, nasa luob ng military camp mismo na sila. no need to worry about our national security being breached sabi, there will be no breaches kuno, maybe because our national security is already breached and compromised.

it’s no wonder po, marami kuno sa military ngayon are depressed and suffering post traumatic stress disorder, and not just because active duty nila in mindanaw got them the bullets, but because they cannot do anything to save our country from invading mainlanders, is what I think.

so they would rather play the depressed sick than tell the president what he did not want to hear.

It is such a wonder how incredibly petty Joeam is to block people just because he disagrees with them. Only losers who cannot compete in the free market of ideas do such a thing. He is completely intellectually dull and dishonest.

Have not seen you here before David. Don’t think you have been here long enough to make such a remark which is not fair comment. I just came from the previous blog on HK where where Joe and I locked horns in many threads there.

If you disagree, do back it up with your views. Joe and all here tolerate all views so long as they are not ad hominems or uncivil to others.

Joe don’t need me to cover for him. As for me, I would actually love to see you share your wisdom and intelligence here and show us the roads to Damascus.

I blocked Him on Twitter. He irritated me by persistently missing the point. Profile of a troll, new account, zero followers, obnoxious arrogance of manner. He’s now in moderation here, but if he ever has anything meaningful to say, I’ll let it through.

Four people are now blocked, but you are the only one for over-enthusiastic postings of comic strips and other wayward ideas. And, yes, I’m a fan. The others are for trolling, game-playing, and name-calling.

Joeam is the kind of person who really cannot understand that the Philippines is the way it is because of FILIPINOS. I bet she has no idea who Leonard Wood is or the machinations of Osmeña which led to the plundering of the PNB once a Pinoy was put in charge. But I do and so do others.

uy, david, joeam is adopted pinoy and has been around nearly forever. joeam was here during supertyphoons, yolanda and others and has been a big help to us all. if only foreigners are like him, pinas would be better country.

joeam is well like by the people who know him, have a drink with him and have chinwag.

Warwick is with David West. They (he probably) represent a blog that promotes the idea that the Philippines is a failure. Horrible place. Worse than GRP. West intruded on my timeline on twitter. Rather like stalking. Creepy fellow.

Took a ride in the MRT, and it was a big deal because it was her first and last.
At least after Unli lambasting of Abaya, she is consistent enough to lambast Tugade.
She said the buck stops with the president only before and during 2016 elections.

You see, as regards Poe butt heading China here, I’m all for it. These circumstances and perspective from Philippines as regards China is very different.

I concede you are right to encourage and indeed support Poe if she continues this path of inserting a braver voice and backbone into a Senate that has become almost useless and a joke with the likes of Gordon and Pacman, and now 3 new tropes of trash in Bato Go Tolentino.

I think your point on Hong Kong is that all affairs are economic and China is no better or worse than any economic player. Indeed, she has been fairly circumspect on Hong Kong, standing back and watching. The protests represent an impotent form of idealism that is not meaningful in the larger scheme of economic interests.

it’s in the genes po. makoy’s daughter through and through. when fpj had a stroke after his shock defeat at the election and in need of care the kind that cannot be given by highly paid medical staff (tender loving care given by family member) grace left for america again, leaving behind the broken man. manay susan who is old herself was mostly fpj’s carer.

methink, fpj would have been happier had grace taken him to america, thus taking him away from scene of his almighty defeat, he being forever reminded of the kalupitan ng taumbayan, how they deserted da king just when he needed them the most. sold him out to arroyo for a hefty price. everyday da king saw people celebrating his defeat, watched arroyo peacocking the limelight, his consolation mostly silence, his multitude of friends gone.

taumbayan deserted fpj big time, they can do so again the daughter.

mostly, people watched fpj’s old movies because they’re free, no need to buy tickets. anyhow, there is already a glut of old movies around, grace should not lull herself into thinking showing fpj’s old movies will equate votes for her.

and if grace meant to prick people’s guilt and conscience for deserting fpj, she could be in for backlash. people dont really want to be reminded of the ill they have done, and would probly be more appreciative if grace is good sport and has that forgive and forget attitude. that her best days are still ahead of her and not buried with fpj.

Poe, unfortunately, seems to be a woman of our times, skipping along the surface of popularity but never diving deep to get something done. We had what we called “water bugs” as kids, these spider-like bugs with big feet that could skip atop the water in the irrigation ditch. Rather like one of them. We threw rocks at them, too.

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